Powell tries to downplay Korea crisis / He says U.S. will talk, but it won't negotiate

Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Published 4:00 am, Monday, December 30, 2002

2002-12-30 04:00:00 PDT Waco, Texas -- Trying to defuse a nuclear confrontation in Asia, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday the United States was seeking communication with North Korea but was not contemplating military action in response to that country's move to restart its nuclear weapons program.

Powell, speaking for the administration as President Bush vacationed on his Texas ranch, confirmed he would dispatch to South Korea the top American diplomat for the region. He also said the Bush administration is dropping a Clinton administration policy vowing an attack if the North resumed nuclear weapon production.

Appearing on all five major Sunday television talk shows, Powell repeatedly sought to play down a sense of crisis on the Korean peninsula even as he asserted the government's view that North Korea already has two nuclear weapons.

Powell said the United States was open to talks with North Korea, but nothing that would appear to negotiation. "We cannot suddenly say, 'Gee we're so scared. Let's have a negotiation because we want to appease your misbehavior.' This kind of action cannot be rewarded," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We are looking for ways to communicate with the North Koreans so some sense can prevail."

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Wrapping up a week of alarming developments in the region that shifted attention away from the showdown with Iraq, Powell said the matter with North Korea requires patience and will "play out in the weeks and months ahead."

North Korea evicted international weapons inspectors last week and said it would restart a plutonium reactor that had been shuttered as part of a 1994 accord brokered by the Clinton administration. U.S. officials speculate the vow to restart the Yongbyon facility, which is of little nonmilitary use, may be a bluff to produce more international economic concessions, but they also believe North Korea is serious about expanding nuclear weapons production.

The Bush administration is encouraging that step, but Powell said there are no plans yet for an American-authored resolution. The administration has been eager to demonstrate that North Korea is defying the world, not just the United States.

James Kelly, assistant secretary of State for East Asia, will go to the region in the next week or two, but has no plans to speak to North Koreans.

NORTH KOREA URGES TALKS

North Korean officials, for their part, urged the United States to negotiate.

"It is quite self-evident that dialogue is impossible without sitting face to face and a peaceful settlement of the issue would be unthinkable without dialogue," said a government spokesman quoted on KCNA, the North's state-run news agency.

Although officials said Powell's offer to talk was not a change in the administration's refusal to yield to nuclear blackmail, the gesture came after many Democrats and a few Republicans urged Bush to engage North Korea directly.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., outgoing chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that North Korea "should hear from our lips just how significant their missteps have been."

Powell, in all his appearances, objected to describing the Korean situation as a crisis. "It suggests we're about to move forces or there's a war about to break out, and that's not the case at all," he said on CNN's "Late Edition." Although he described the situation at times as "serious" and "grave," Powell, citing American intelligence, said North Korea has probably had two nuclear weapons for a decade.

By restarting the plutonium facility, North Korea could have four more nuclear weapons in six months, Powell said.

'NOT YET A CRISIS'

"But it is not yet a crisis that requires mobilization or for us to be threatening North Korea," he said. "Quite the contrary. We have been saying to North Korea that we have no plans to invade you. We have no hostile intent towards you."

Powell typically has a softer touch than Bush administration hawks, but the White House's selection of Powell as its point man was a sign that the North Korea matter would be handled with diplomacy rather than confrontation. Powell explicitly set aside former President Bill Clinton's stated commitment to attack if Yongbyon were to reopen.

"In fact, the Clinton administration did have a declaratory policy that if anything else happened at Yongbyon, they would attack it," he said on ABC. "We don't have that policy. We don't -- we're not saying what we might or might not do. We think it's best to try to use diplomacy."

Powell, on NBC, said he did not want to prejudge what the administration would do if North Korea built more bombs -- but he committed to action if North Korea shipped nuclear weapons to other nations. "This, I think, would be a red line that would definitely be crossed," he said.

He warned that a strike on the North Korean facility, now that it is operational, would cause radioactive contamination.

PRESSURE IS THE SOLUTION

Though not ruling out future military actions, he said, "Nobody's going to attack North Korea. We have no plans to attack North Korea. We've said it repeatedly, the president has said it repeatedly. Why would we want to attack North Korea?" The solution, he said, was in pressure supplied in cooperation with China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

"I suspect that there are going to be negotiations," Lugar said on NBC. "They may not be directly between the United States and North Korea. It could very well be through the Chinese, through the South Koreans, through the Japanese, through a combination of multilateral international community."

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